Monthly Archives: October 2014

DETROIT >> Wings coach Mike Babcock had this to say on the phantom goalie interference call on Luke Glendening that led to a Washington power play and a disallowed goal for the Wings on Wednesday.

“When you’re done complaining and whining about it, by the time that’s all done, they can have it right,” Babcock said. “It takes two seconds to get it right. The referee never wants to get it wrong. He doesn’t want to watch the replay for three weeks of him getting it wrong either. He’d rather have it right.”

Glendening wasn’t even close to Caps goalie Braden Holtby when he was called for the penalty.

“I imagine the way it happened, you see the goalie laying there and you see the shot go in the net,” Babcock said. “He says, ‘I can’t him a goal he tripped a guy,’ so you call a penalty because that’s what happens naturally. You don’t a goalie is going to fall down. “In the end he got it wrong.”

Last year against the Kings, the Wings tied the game up when a puck hit off the mesh behind the net, bounced back and hit Jonathan Quick in the back before trickling into the net.

The goal was credited by Niklas Kronwall. The Wings went onto win the game in a shootout.

“But the time we got all this screwing around with we could have got it right,” Babcock said. “I think the league wants to get it right. I’m not in charge of this stuff and I don’t know how to do it, but I’m sure the league wants to get it right.”

The goal waved off was that of Drew Miller.

“I like that idea of an extended replay or like football, a flag or challenge,” Brendan Smith said. “I think we need a few more breaks coming our way. We just can’t say the one against Washington is the only one, there have been several of them. I would like to see a stat of who gets the most disallowed goals. We have to be up there. But we did get a fluky one the last time we played L.A.”

“I don’t know, I think it would be a tough rule, I don’t know how they would do it,” Gustav Nyquist said. “Obviously it probably should have been a goal for sure. But mistakes happen, they have a tough job. I don’t know how you would do it. I think that’s going to be tough to kind of apply to the game.”

Stephen Weiss is on his way back from his brief conditioning stint in Grand Rapids after he suffered another issue with his groin in the Griffins game on Wednesday.

Wings general manager Ken Holland said that Weiss won’t play on Friday in Grand Rapids as he was expected before joining Detroit on Saturday for its three-game road trip.

Johan Franzen (groin) continued to skate and hopes to return to the lineup Sunday in Buffalo.

Detroit hosts the defending Stanley Cup champ Los Angeles Kings on Friday and have to figure out a way to slow down Jeff Carter’s line.

“He’s a real good player,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said of Carter. “I know him real good from just having him at the Olympics. He can play with and without the puck. He’s got a bomb of a shot. He scores for fun.”

Carter entered play Thursday second on the team with 12 points (five goals, seven assists).

He’s sandwiched between his linemates – Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson – for the team lead in scoring. Toffoli is first with five goals and eight assists, while Pearson has seven goals and two assists.

Drew Doughty is a distant fourth in points with five.

“I didn’t know who Toffoli was to tell you the truth, I didn’t know him that good, but every time I see him he’s shooting it,” Babcock said. “And Pearson seems to be a real good player. Those are guys I don’t know real good. I’ll get to know them better. They’re real good players, but there’s a whole bunch of other guys on that team that are real good players.”

The Wings made one minor change to the power play, moving Gustav Nyquist back up with the top unit and Tomas Jurco moved to the second group.

“We changed it back, just trying to switch things around,” Nyquist said. “We haven’t been scoring. My jobs are a little different on both units. Now I’m with Hank and Pav and I’m going to be the guy in the middle, trying to retrieve a lot of pucks and get the puck back to those guys for them to make plays and obviously be ready to shoot when I get in the middle.”

Babcock had moved Nyquist down with Riley Sheahan, Tomas Tatar, Andrej Nestrasil and Danny DeKeyser so he would be able to shoot the puck more.

“We all have to have different jobs on the power play, obviously, but we want to work together at the same time,” Nyquist said. “As a power play we can be interchangeable and stuff like that so right now we’re just trying to find a way to score goals ’cause we haven’t done that so hopefully it starts tomorrow.

“We’ve had a lot of chances but we’re still not getting the puck obviously in the net,” Nyquist added. “It would be nice to get one here soon, to get things going. I think we have two really good groups with a lot of skill and I think a lot of players can put the puck in the net on those two units so it should be working.”

The Wings’ power play is just 2-for-30 this season.

“But when you’re scrambling sometimes you do things,” Babcock said. “I thought it was a real good idea we took (Nyquist) away and then we haven’t got anything to go. We’ve got to attack the net so I just thought those are the guys that have been scoring for us. We put them in scoring positions and see what happens.”

DETROIT >> Johan Franzen participated in practice for the first time since injuring his groin on Oct. 17 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“It wasn’t great, but it was a first time skating with the team so that’s a good thing,” Franzen said. “I felt pretty good. I’m going to skate again tomorrow.”

Franzen will make the trip to Washington and take part in the morning skate.

“I’ve just been trying (to skate on my own), cruising around in shorts, seeing if it’s still there,” Franzen said. “Today was a step forward.

“I tried a few strides at 100 percent or close to it,” Franzen continued. “It didn’t feel great doing that so I backed off. I’m going to start a little slower.”

Wings coach Mike Babcock said he expected Franzen back in a couple days, but the forward was less optimistic.

“The big thing is anytime you’ve been out, and I say this all the time, it doesn’t matter who you are, it’s tough getting back in,” Babcock said. “The Mule has trained like crazy. But when you get back in your fitness isn’t the same and there isn’t anything you can do about that. It was good to see him out there today.”

Franzen has two goals and three assists in four games this season.

“I was feeling great,” Franzen said. “I’ve never had a groin issue before. I don’t know if it happened after I fell after that goal or what. I never really noticed it happened, but yeah it sucks. I’ve got to skate a little more and see where I’m at.”

DETROIT >> Quick update from the Wings’ morning skate Thursday prior to their game tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Coach Mike Babcock will go with the same lineup as he had Tuesday in Montreal which means Stephen Weiss, Daniel Cleary and Brian Lashoff are healthy scratches.

Jimmy Howard will start in goal.

Babcock did switch a forward on the power play units.

Tomas Jurco will play on the top unit with Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Darren Helm and Niklas Kronwall, while Gustav Nyquist will play on the second group with Riley Sheahan, Tomas Tatar, Andrej Nestrasil and Danny DeKeyser.

“We want Gus to have more touches and whenever he plays with those guys he never gets the puck,” Babcock said. “We think having him with Tats and Sheahan that gives him more opportunity to have the puck.”

Nyquist has both of the Wings’ goals this season on the power play.

The Wings’ penalty kill, which has yet to allow a goal, faces the league’s top power play.

The Penguins have scored eight goals on 19 chances with the man advantage.

“The key to tonight is don’t take penalties,” Drew Miller said. “You have to play rough and tough and match their speed and their skill out there and all of that, but we have to be smart and not take the penalties that you don’t want to kill off. That’s the biggest thing, and once we are the penalty killers got to do what we’re doing.

“I just think we’re playing our system well,” Miller continued. “I don’t know, we’re perfect right now, we want to stay that way, and we know they have a good power play, so we’re just going to stay the same way and work hard.”

Detroit is 18-for-18 on the penalty kill though six games.

“We’re happy about that and will try to keep it that way for as long as we can,” Joakim Andersson said. “It would be hard to do it for 82 games, but as long as we can we’d like to keep it this way.”

Sidney Crosby has three goals on the power play, while Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz have two each.

“They’re a great team and we have to put our best foot forward on the penalty kill, try to eliminate as much zone time as we can,” Luke Glendening said.

The Wings’ penalty kill finished last season ranked 12th, an 83-percent kill rate.

“I just think we’re being more aggressive than last year,” Glendening said. “We’ve done a pretty decent job on faceoffs, which is allowing us to clear the puck quickly. When you can get a start with the puck in their zone it’s always a plus.”

DETROIT >> Pavel Datsyuk logged 18:05 in ice time and had a goal disallowed in his first action of the season.

“I thought I could have had better play, (been) stronger on the puck,” said Datsyuk, who has been out since Sept. 22. “I think every game will be much better and I’ll feel more comfortable.”

“No, it was fine, no shots,” Datsyuk said when asked if he had taken a hit on his shoulder Wednesday. “No shots on net either.”

His disallowed goal came from a spectacular backhand midway through the third period that would have given the Wings a 2-0 lead. It was ruled that Justin Abdelkader had interfered with the Canadiens’ goalie.

“I don’t have great emotion,” Datsyuk said. “I see right away they stop, they say no goal. I think sometimes they make good call, bad call, it’s his job.”

DETROIT >> Quick update from the Wings’ off day at Joe Louis Arena on Wednesday.

Coach Mike Babcock felt his team needed a day off after getting home late from Montreal and having a meeting with Pittsburgh on home ice Thursday.

“We never got home till late, late, late,” Babcock said. “I just thought I want energy tomorrow. I didn’t know what was right for sure.

“We wanted to clear a lot up in our game so we had a meeting,” Babcock continued. “We dealt with our power play a little bit and we felt we can score a lot better by being harder, we haven’t been. We’re just trying to evolve our game so we did that.”

The Wings were 0-for-3 with the man advantage in the 2-1 overtime loss to the Canadiens, dropping them to just 2-for-24 on the season.

“I think we have to get the puck back more, that’s the biggest thing,” Babcock said. “You have to shoot it more and get it back more. There’s lots of stuff we talked about here today. There are lots of people that know what’s expected. The other thing is you have to get off the schneid, you just have to get one so everyone relaxes and makes plays instead of doing what they’re doing right now. I’m confident that will happen.”

Gustav Nyquist has both of Detroit’s power play goals this year.

“I’ve been real impressed with our look and our opportunities,” Babcock said. “Even last night, Hank (Zetterberg) had the wide open net and hit the post. We had some looks, but it hasn’t gone in for us. Once it goes in you start feeling better about yourself. We need some goals out of it.”

In those 24 power play opportunities the Wings have just 28 shots on goal.

“We keep talking about it, but we have to get some more pucks to the net,” Niklas Kronwall said. “I think that’s the bottom line. How it gets there is not always that important, just gotta make sure that it gets there and we have people there. So we’ve gotta take the shot more often.

“You want to do good out there,” Kronwall continued. “Of course sometimes I think maybe you overanalyze things and you want to do the right thing and that ends up you thinking too much. Just go back to basics and keep it simple out there usually works.”

Darren Helm has a pair of assists on the power play. Kronwall and Johan Franzen have the others.

“The scorers get lots of points on the power play,” Babcock said. “You want the power play to go well because it makes you feel good individually as well.

“I think initially you say, ‘Hey it’s going good’, and it is, but eventually it’s got to go in,” Babcock added. “We have to find a way to be better at it and be harder to play against in that situation.
The other thing is the when you look at the work ethic of our penalty kill and how hard those guys work. The power play has to work just as hard because you have to outwork the guys you’re playing against. If you don’t you have no chance.”

The Wings’ penalty kill has yet to allow a goal against on 18 chances.